AIR at Treasure Hill :
Performance
2015, Apr.-Jun.
Treasure Hill is one of the most controversial examples of gentrification in Taipei.
(Read More: "Treasure Hill>Wikipedia", "Treasure Hill Artist Village in Taipei, Where Past and Present Coalesce" )
In 2015, I had a 3-month residency at Treasure Hill. The house where I grew up is a 10-minute walk away from it, however, I never visited this spot until 2007. People who didn’t have a chance to visit it before its restoration in 2007 can hardly imagine the “before-after” change. Luckily, I had the opportunity to see the difference. The first time I was there, most of the previous residents already moved out because of the coming restoration, which meant most houses were empty and anyone could walk in and out without permission. It was nighttime, and I followed in my friends’ footsteps, walking through this incredible, while organically messy maze, in and out, up and down. All the architectures were part of the landscape, there was no regulated path as long as your body could go through. When Treasure Hill transformed into an artist village, it didn’t only change how it looked, it also influenced how people moved around in the space, both for the residents and for the visitors. The original public-private boundary was forced to be more and more clear, in order to protect the residents’ privacy from the tourists’ peeking. Essentially distinguishing it into 2 different parallel worlds, one is for the residents, one is for the artist village, where most of the tourists walk around. As an artist in the artist village, it’s awkward because theoretically, I was also ”a resident” for three months; but physically, I was in a place where I saw lots of tourists stop in front of my window and take selfies everyday. I didn’t try to blame the process of gentrification on the tourists and state what would be politically correct, but somehow I wanted to leave some trace for them, to remind the visitors of the difference between now and then. Not by nostalgically describing what it was, but by bringing up the historically “transient” status of Treasure Hill. Based on that, my final presentation was called “See the Image, Forget Me Not”, and included 2 projects that I had done while in this residency program, one was also called “See the Image, Forget Me Not”, and the other was “Hello I am the Artist in the Residence”.
Project 1:
See the Image,
Forget Me Not
The term “勿忘影中人” (Wu Wang Ying zhong ren) could be translated word by word as “don’t forget person in the shadow”, but since “photography” in Chinese is composed by 2 characters “攝影”, meaning “catch shadow/ image” if you take these 2 words apart ( 影 is a tricky one here, it not only refers to shadow, but can also refer to image sometimes, depending on context), “勿忘影中人” actually refers to “don’t forget the person in the photo”, which is an old-school way of telling other people to think of you when they see the photo of you. That’s the reason I use “See the Image, Forget me not” as the English title for this project.
On the holidays, there are always tons of visitors showing up and taking photos at Treasure Hill.
What I am doing in my project “See the Image, Forget Me Not” is searching for people who are taking photos at Treasure Hill and asking the one in the photo if I could trace his/her shadow or outline (depending on the weather) on the floor and / or wall with chalk.
Before starting the tracing, I would ask the person in the photo to hold his/ her pose and the photographer to take the same photo as he / she just did with my camera, so I could also get the original photo. After tracing the shadow / outline, I mark out the date and time, and ask the owner of the shadow / outline to write down “勿忘影中人” (See the Image, Forget Me Not) and sign his /her name or nickname.
The owner of the shadow / outline can also decide if he / she wants to draw any decoration around the chalk tracing or not.
Project 2:
Hello I am the Artist in the Residence
My residential house is located next to the main path for most of the tourists passing by. I would often hear people talking outside of my place, saying something like “I heard there are Artists staying here”.
When I had just started my residency here, the staff in Treasure Hill gave me two boxes of business cards that I could give away. Since there are not many people that I could give a business card too, I decided to deliver them to the tourists who are passing my house, and introduce myself to them. When I do that, I don't step outside of my house, instead I follow the tourists from the inside of my house, opening the windows along the house and talking to them. (See the illustration)
Business Card
